


children of celestial fuckin' light

by Damkianna



Category: Constantine (2005)
Genre: Caretaking, F/M, Gen, Minor Injuries, Post-Canon, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:03:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2834144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angela doesn't go to the warehouse on the corner of 7th without backup, as she explains to John afterward. She does go alone, but that's not the same thing. She knew he would get there before anything happened. She's psychic.</p><p>(Post-canon: after the implied separation at the end of the movie, John comes back.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	children of celestial fuckin' light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [turtlebook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turtlebook/gifts).



> I love this movie and I love Angela Dodson, so your letter was like a Yuletide gift! I'm just returning the favor. I took "stitching up each other's wounds" and your fondness for John/Angela and somehow wrote either the shippiest genfic or the gennest shipfic ever—I'm not sure which it is, but I hope you enjoy it. ♥
> 
> Title is a quote from Hellblazer (issue #129); this fic is strictly movieverse, though, I promise.

  


Angela doesn't go to the warehouse on the corner of 7th without backup, as she explains to John afterward. She does go alone, but that's not the same thing. She knew he would get there before anything happened. She's psychic.

John gives her a level stare. "So you saw that," he says, "but not this?" He twists his arm around, baring an ugly gash that's oozing blood all over his elbow.

He didn't notice, Angela thinks. He'd gotten that because he'd slipped halfway through the fight, on a wrapper. A food wrapper. In a deserted warehouse. The wrapper hadn't been there before Angela arrived, but she had stayed low on the way in—had touched the concrete floor, had seen John's blood pooling as he'd fought to hold the hole in his side shut—

She doesn't tell him that. "Can't see everything," she says instead, deliberately light, and shrugs. "Come on. I'll take care of it."

John hesitates. He's got his office—or he should, unless the rent didn't get paid while he was out of town—but he's tired. Angela can see it in the way he's holding himself, the slump in his shoulders. He doesn't want to go back there by himself and bleed alone in the dark.

"Come on," she says again, more gently, and puts a hand to John's uninjured arm.

John comes.

  


*

  


They limp back to Angela's building together. Neither of them got out of the fight unscathed, and the further they walk, the more the adrenaline wears off; by the time they make it to Angela's door, they're leaning into each other. Mrs. Ioannidis from down the hall gives them a judgmental look—Angela hopes it's because they look sort of drunk and not because she can see the blood seeping through John's blazer.

Angela fumbles the key, needs a second try to open the lock. Stepping into her apartment feels like a weight lifting off her shoulders, the touch of every ugly thing in that warehouse sloughing off her all at once as she steps into the warm soft light of the lamp by the door, as Duck meows scoldingly at them from the sofa and then stretches, leisurely.

Angela drags a chair from the kitchen over toward the sofa. Duck skitters out of her way, displeased; but when she turns around, the cat's stopped to rub her head against John's shins. And John—John's just standing there, looking down at her, expression vaguely bewildered.

Angela laughs. "I guess she's forgiven you for using her as a portal to Hell," she says.

John looks up. "Guess so," he says, and bends, wincing, to let Duck sniff his fingers delicately.

"See you around," Angela murmurs after a moment.

John straightens up again, and says nothing.

"It's been almost six months," Angela says. Not angrily, just—evenly.

"I got a little caught up," John says, quiet. Which probably means he took five or six more jaunts through Hell and almost got himself killed twice, Angela thinks. Maybe even three times. John looks at her with calm dark eyes and shrugs. "I came back as soon as I could."

It isn't an apology, Angela thinks, which means she doesn't quite know what it is; but it sounds true. She'll take it. "Sit down before you fall down," she says, tilting her head toward the sofa.

"I'm fine," John says; but he moves to sit anyway.

She wrapped up his arm as best she could—it'll need stitches, probably, but it isn't urgent. And the worst thing about the darkness they're fighting is the way it _clings_.

So Angela doesn't go for the first aid kit, not right away. (Though it's really more of an occult emergency response kit these days—crosses, quicksilver, holy water; pressure bandages, butterfly bandages, needles and suture thread. Angela took out all the bandaids that came with the kit. Her wounds are never that minor anymore; or, when they are, they don't matter compared to the ones that aren't.)

Angela goes for the sink instead. She gets a washcloth out of the drawer and runs lukewarm water over it until it's dripping; and then she carries the washcloth over, sits down in the chair across from John's seat on the sofa, and cleans his hands.

They're tacky with blood, his own and probably a little of Angela's, and something green-black that must have come from the demon; scarred all over, underneath that, and—warm. Another time, when she wasn't so tired, Angela might feel embarrassed, but as it is she lets herself linger. She doesn't touch people much these days. But John—she already knows everything that's ugly about John. She remembers the spider under the glass, his voice saying _straight to Hell_ like he couldn't care less. There's nothing she needs to be afraid of learning when she touches John.

So she swabs the muck gently off John's torn-up knuckles, like she's cleaning a painting or something; and she's almost done when John suddenly moves, flips his hands over and grabs hers.

He takes the washcloth away from her, and she lets him, doesn't reach after it or ask him what the hell he's doing. John isn't any good at caring about people and doesn't like to do it where he can be seen; but if you keep quiet and hold still, sometimes you can catch him at it anyway.

He's awkward about it, stilted, but methodical: he cleans Angela's palms, the scrapes on the heels of her hands, the little webs between her fingers where the grime's caught. Angela watches his face while he does it. He's studiously not looking back at her; but he keeps going, thorough, until Angela's hands are about as clean as they're going to get.

That's when it starts to bother him. She can see it, the way he stiffens up—he wants to clear his throat but doesn't, wants to move away but can't. He hands the washcloth back to her instead. "Here."

She waits a beat, so it doesn't come out strained or too fast when she says, "Thanks." She touches his wrist as she gets up; maybe it's that, maybe it's the space she gives him by turning her back, but whatever the reason, he's still there when she comes back with the first aid kit.

Still there, and he's rolled his sleeve up past the elbow, far enough to expose that slice he got. She opens up the kit, and they sit there in the yellow-lit quiet of Angela's apartment, Duck purring away on the far arm of the sofa, their knees slotted together so Angela can sit close enough to reach John's arm. Domestic, Angela thinks, and then swallows a laugh—domestic, sure. Although sewing up where John got clawed by a demon probably is the most domestic Angela's likely to get, these days.

Angela's had more practice than she'd like; her stitches are maybe a little big, but neat and tight. She doesn't offer John anything for the pain, because he wouldn't accept. She ties the thread off and starts to sit back, but she doesn't get far before John's hand comes down on her shoulder.

"Wait," he says, quiet, and then slides his fingers up into Angela's hair—it almost makes her shiver, except—

"Ow!"

"Hold still," he says, flat and a little scolding; but the corners of his eyes are crinkling up.

There's a cut just behind Angela's ear, splitting the thin skin and curving up a little way into her hair. She'd thought it was just drying sweat making the back of her neck feel so sticky—apparently not.

John holds her hair aside and plucks one of the smaller butterfly bandages out of the kit. "I save your ass, and I need stitches," he murmurs, contemplative. "You go in alone, and you get a papercut. Just isn't right."

Angela raises her eyebrows at him. "Psychic," she says, gesturing to herself; and John's too tired, she thinks, to manage not to smile.

John finishes pressing the bandage down; and with the bandage done all of a sudden it's just John with his hand in Angela's hair, his fingers against her neck. He hesitates for a second, and Angela—

Angela sees it: sees a future, lurching nearer every instant, where John waits a moment longer and then shifts sharply away, stands up and knocks Angela's knees aside, leaves—leaves for another six months, a year; wants to say something but can't, would rather let that long cold distance open up between them than—

Than let Angela make it easier for him, but luckily that's not his decision. She straightens up in her chair so she can look him in the eye. "I'm glad you're back, John," she says.

John looks at her for a long moment, still as stone; and then he lets out a breath, glances down at his knees and then back up at Angela. "Me too," he says, and stays.

  



End file.
